Kristen + Anthony’s Beaver Creek Winter Elopement
Kristen and Anthony’s elopement in Beaver Creek was intentional from beginning to end, and such a joy to photograph. The couple from Ohio visited Beaver Creek on a ski trip last year, and fell in love with the Colorado mountains. When the time came to start planning their elopement, they knew immediately that didn’t want anything traditional, and decided to get married on another ski trip with their families. While we threw around a couple of different ideas, from Aspen to Telluride, Beaver Creek came out on top.
It was important to K & A that their ceremony was somewhere private, without having other people around. Since they were eloping the first week of January, when schools are still on their holiday break here, we knew the ski resorts would be too busy for having a group ceremony anywhere on the slopes. I found a couple of options for us, and we first booked a snow cat tour—then the company cancelled on us because they’d decided to sell their snow cat. We went back to the drawing board, and finally found the perfect solution: a private tour in heated UTVs!
Our UTV guide lead us up to an overlook with views of Mount Massive and Mount Elbert right at sunset, and it could not have been more beautiful. Anthony had been hoping for fresh snow, and right as he and Kristen exchanged their rings, with Kristen’s sister officiating the ceremony, the first snowflakes started coming down. By the time we were driving down again, it was snowing heavily, and we took the opportunity to stop in a couple different spots for photos in the headlights and with my flash lighting up the snow all around us. It really was magical!
The evening ended with a gourmet dinner prepared by Chef Rosa Provoste at their vacation rental in Beaver Creek. Kristen and Anthony are really close to their families, and getting to spend quality time with everyone was really important to them when planning this whole day. I’ll forever be a fan of having a chef come to your lodging instead of going out to a restaurant on your wedding day, because it creates such a cozy, relaxed atmosphere—and keeps it private, too.
And because we couldn’t find a way to fit it into their actual wedding day, I met back up with Kristen and Anthony the next morning for a couple of hours on the slopes of Beaver Creek Resort, with me photographing them skiing and snowboarding down together in their wedding attire!
The next morning, I picked up Kristen and Anthony at their vacation rental and drove us up to Beaver Creek for an epic morning on the slopes. The weather was a chilly 18° with heavy snowflakes coming down on us, but we were so stoked about the fresh snow that it kept us going! While the weekday morning and weather combined to keep the slopes fairly quiet, I still think we turned every head on the mountain when folks saw Kristen skiing down in her wedding dress!
You’d never know it from the photos, but Kristen had actually bought a second dress just for skiing! And to stay warm, she’d found fleece-lined leg-warmers and the cutest pearl earmuffs. The attention to detail didn’t stop there—she’d also bought a used snowboard and skis that she spray painted black and white and added custom “bride” and “groom” stickers too. And because her and Anthony were skiing and riding without helmets, we stuck with easy green terrain and took it slow—but got such fun photos out of it!
